Reviewed by Alicia Glass
Studio: Amblin Entertainment
MPAA Rating: PG 13
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Review Rating: 8
Agent J goes back in time to the 1960’s to save a younger Agent K and stop a ravening alien from changing history!
I adore the MIBs series. Somehow the movie Gods managed to make the perfect comedic team of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, both actors known action roles but at very different spectrums. So I was kind of sad to learn that Jones wouldn’t be in a whole lot of this installment of MIBs, his younger self would be played by Josh Brolin. However, I must give Brolin credit – he had Agent K down to a T, even to the accent, which I thought was awesome. Jemaine Clement, noone I’ve ever heard of, is the bad guy Boris the Animal, and he’s a very MIBs monster – all contained alien-y until he loses it at the end, altered snarly voice, and general badass-dom. And of course Will Smith is the same old J he always is – quick with a quip, in control (mostly) of the aliens he’s in charge of wrangling, and determined to save K!
So the whole thing starts off with Boris the Animal escaping from a megamax prison on the moon built, apparently, especially just for him. He just has to go back to earth to stop Agent K, way back in the ‘60’s, from taking his arm and putting him in prison. And did I mention the Arcnet, the thing that protects earth from just being overrun by hostile aliens, was something Agent K deployed way back in the ‘60’s, and Boris wants to stop that too?! Cut to Agent J giving present-day Agent K unwanted reminders about the eulogy speech he needs to give for the death of Zed, the head of MIB since the movies began. Agent O is now the new head of MIB, and of course there’s a slight bit of history (the hell you say) between her and Agent K. Then things start getting all kinds of wonky and Agent J ends up with illegal time travel tech from a stoner, heading back to the time where Boris went after Agent K originally. MIB is already up and running at this point, and of course J finds himself there, being questioned by younger Agent K while admiring younger Agent O. After a total K and J moment, they head off to find Boris the Animal and prevent him from stopping the launch of the Apollo 11 to the moon at Cape Canaveral. There are great moments at a party with the rather alien-like Andy Warhol, at the stadium where the Mets finally win the world series, and tons of great action scenes on the scaffolding next to the Apollo 11. Interwoven between the action scenes is a very lovely and poignant MIB moment, where J learns a secret K never told him, and suddenly a lot more things make sense without him having to bug the hell out of K to get the information!
This installment of MIBs has no real love interest, unless it’s for Agent K and that’s when he’s a younger man. Personally I thought that was a good choice, anything more would’ve muddied things unnecessarily. Michael Stuhlbarg is Griffin, the kind and helpful alien who gifts MIB with the Arcnet, he does well at playing this kind of benevolent scatterbrain genius. Loved Boris’ voice, I think his voice should’ve belonged to Bane. Agent J and Agent K are the same as always, if not better than, still and always protecting the earth from aliens!
Agent J: “I’m an Agent of Men In Black, but I’m from the future. We’re partners, twenty-five years from now you’re going to recruit me. And fourteen years after, the guy you didn’t let me kill at Coney Island, he escapes from prison, and jumps back in the past and unleashes a full-scale invasion of Earth. We have about nineteen hours to catch him and kill him, so really we need to go right now.”
Agent K: “…All right.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyaFEBI_L24]